The summer mountain breeze blew through the lamp hanging in front of the house, causing the bulb and the numerous insects around it to sway, casting a mottled light and shadow. At first, I thought I was seeing things, but after the wind passed, the shadow remained there.

At first glance, I didn’t feel much, but the more I looked, the colder my back became. Could it be that someone had hanged themselves in Ah Gui’s house? I forced myself to shake off the dazed feeling and sat up, rubbing my eyes to take a closer look.

Upon looking again, the shadow had vanished, and behind the window was a pitch-black darkness, with nothing there. Was it an illusion? I furrowed my brow and asked Ah Gui, “Who lives in that room behind?”

Ah Gui glanced over and replied, “It’s my son.”

Oh, a thought flashed through my mind, but nothing concrete came to me; I just felt dizzy again, thinking that it must be his son looking this way. I had drunk too much, and my perception was off.

It was getting late, and Ah Gui looked at his house, saying he needed to go back and rest. The fat guy paid a hefty fee for a few words, and after saying goodbye to him, we entered the house. Once inside, the fat guy grumbled, “Damn it, for just a couple of sentences, that son of a gun managed to take three hundred bucks from me. The wisdom of the working class is truly boundless.”

I replied, “Who told you to show off your wealth in this poor, remote place? You regret it now, don’t you? You’re the epitome of a fool.”

The fat guy mumbled something about me being a hypocrite, but I didn’t have the energy to argue with him. It’s not easy for ordinary people to fall asleep in Guangxi at night; we hadn’t slept well the previous nights. However, after drinking tonight, I felt quite dazed and quickly fell asleep. This time, I slept soundly until after eleven the next morning. After eating the lunch that Ah Gui made for us, we followed his daughter to the address that Brother Chu had given us. We arrived in less than ten minutes.

It was an old stilted wooden house, with black tiles and yellow mud walls, just one story high. Compared to other wooden houses, it looked a bit smaller—most houses here seem to be like this—appearing uninhabited, blending in with the other houses in the village, very inconspicuous.

Ah Gui’s daughter was curious about why we were there. We pretended to take photos, and the fat guy gave her some money to send her away. Seeing that there were not many people around, we attempted to sneak inside.

The wooden house was built on a hillside, backed against the mountain. All the windows were broken, and the door was locked tightly, with faded door god paintings stuck on it. We pushed on the door, but it wouldn’t budge even a crack.

“Do you have any impression of this wooden house?” I asked the silent oil bottle.

He touched the wooden pillars and the door, shaking his head. I sighed. At that moment, the fat guy had already pried open one of the windows and waved at us, “Hurry, we can get in here.”

“You’re so skilled at this; have you done this before?” I scolded.

“What kind of person do you think I am? You understand, right? There’s only a single word difference between tomb raiding and theft,” the fat guy said while urging us on.

We took turns keeping watch and stealthily crawled in through the window, then closed it behind us. Once inside, my heart raced uncontrollably; it felt extremely thrilling. I even got my pants caught, almost exposing myself, thinking that stealing from the living was much more psychologically stressful than stealing from the dead.

The wooden building was a bit dark, but the structure was quite simple. I first saw a large dining room that resembled a place where Ah Gui would eat, connected to a kitchen. Many rusty tools hung on the walls.

“Hey, I really didn’t expect you to be a farmer,” the fat guy said, picking up a hoe from the side. “As the saying goes, ‘Weeding at noon, I’m the weeder, and you’re the noon.'”

We ignored him and noticed a wooden wall separating the room. Behind that wall should be the room that Brother Chu mentioned he found. This type of wooden building only has one room, so it couldn’t be wrong.

There was no door, just a rather old curtain, with dust on it that had formed patterns. The muffled oil bottle frowned, looked around, and seemed a bit hesitant. But after just a few seconds, he lifted the curtain and walked in. I felt a bit nervous; this person, who seemed to float in the void, had finally found a place to settle, but he didn’t remember it at all. I wondered if heaven was playing tricks on him, but there was no time to think too much about it as the fat guy pushed me in.

As soon as we entered the room, a musty smell hit us. It was very dark inside, and we couldn’t see anything clearly. I barely saw the fat guy trying to open a window, only to discover that the room had no windows at all.

I didn’t expect this situation. No one had brought a flashlight, so we could only lift the curtain a bit to let some light in from outside. In the dim light, we could see that the room was quite cramped, with a row of shelves against the wall. As we looked around, we noticed some books and a few boxes on the shelves. The shelves were mostly empty, and the floor was scattered with dirt. Besides these items, there was a wooden bed and a wooden table. The table was an old student desk, and everything was covered in a layer of fine dust.

The air in the mountains was very clean, so there wasn’t much dust accumulation. If this were in a big city, the dust here could probably be shoveled away for farming. This also indicated that no one had been here for a long time.

“This is your room?” I was a bit surprised. Looking at this room, it felt too ordinary. Is this really where the muffled oil bottle lives? Shouldn’t a person like him have a more peculiar place?

But then I thought, I couldn’t really imagine what kind of peculiarities would be appropriate. After all, he was still just a person; everyone sleeps in a bed, not a coffin. Clues wouldn’t be written on the walls; they should be in the furnishings.

We walked in, and the fat guy approached the cabinets, finding basically nothing. He muttered to himself, “I can’t tell you’re actually a very poor farmer.”

Although there weren’t many items in the room, it looked quite messy. The boxes and books were not neatly arranged, likely having been rummaged through when Brother Chu came. I casually picked up a book and found it was quite moldy; it was an old version of a thread-bound book. As I flipped through it, I noticed it had started to mold. I wondered how such a book ended up here.

The only things that looked somewhat decent were the bed and the table. Thinking of this, I immediately walked towards the writing desk to look for the photos Brother Chu mentioned.

As I reached the table, I saw a dusty glass covering it, beneath which I could faintly make out many photos. It seemed that Brother Chu hadn’t lied to me.